


under the mistletoe

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Christmas Fluff, Community: comment_fic, F/M, First Kiss, Het, Rare Pair, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7484496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe and Caitlin escape from the party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	under the mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> Theme: holidays  
> Prompt: any, any, what happens under the mistletoe stays under the mistletoe

"How come you're hiding in here?" 

Caitlin turned at Joe's surprised voice, ducked her head and let her hair fall over her face in an effort to hide her blush. "I thought I'd help you get started on the clean-up," she said, placing a now clean plate into the drying rack before plunging her hands back into the sink of soapy water to pull up another. "It seemed the least I could do." 

Joe pressed his lips together, made a face that, if were Cisco, would be accompanied by a raspberry sound. Joe didn't do that though, just clucked his tongue, which was an awful lot easier to take. "You don't have to do that." He picked up a dish towel, took the next plate directly from her hand. "You should go back out there," he told her after a minute. "Cisco mentioned something about Christmas karaoke, some app he's found... what?" 

"Trust me, Joe." She laughed softly. "You do not want to hear me sing." 

She thought he might leave it at that; too late she remembered that he was a cop, trained to interrogate, to investigate. "Is it the singing?" he asked. "Or the Christmas?" He was too close for comfort and she looked down again, scrubbed extra hard at a spot of particularly stubborn dirt. "You seemed a little quiet..." His voice trailed off. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked..."

"No, it's ok." The words surprised her and from the widening of his eyes, him as well. "I guess... I've been in this house the last two Christmases, watching you switch on those lights. Two years ago, I was heartbroken because I'd just found out Ronnie was alive but he didn't want anything to do with me. Last year..." She shuddered, because this one still hurt. "Last year, I was heartbroken over Ronnie for a different reason... but looking forward to moving on with Jay." Their first kiss had been under the mistletoe in Joe's living room and at the time, her stomach had swooped with giddy delight. It swooped now for an entirely different reason. 

Joe's huff of breath had her looking at him out of the corner of her eye. His lips were pressed into a thin line, his eyes flashing dangerously and he too was drying the plate slightly harder than might have been warranted. For a second, she thought that he was angry at her but then he said, "You couldn't have known, Caitlin... he fooled all of us." 

Caitlin looked straight ahead, saw her reflection in the glass of the window. For just a moment, she saw Zoom standing behind her, could almost feel the crackle of blue lightning in the air. Then the image shifted, into a speedster in yellow, a familiar face, another man who'd lied to her when she'd trusted him with all she had. She squeezed her eyes shut, swallowed the lump in her throat. "Jay... Wells... Seems to be a theme."

"All right, enough." He sounded impatient but when she looked up at him, his eyes were kind. Laying the dish towel down on the counter, he reached into the sink, took her wrists in his hands and lifted them out. He picked up the dish towel, rubbed at her hands with it and she was so shocked that any words she might have said about unsanitary hygiene practices died on her lips. "Enough with the pity parties and the looking back... we've had a hell of a year. But we're here. Together. All of us.  And you and I, Doctor Snow, are going to go out there and sing Christmas karaoke and I don't care if it clears the room." 

His lips curved in a smile and she found herself smiling back, even if there was a thin film of tears coating her vision. She looked up towards the ceiling to keep them at bay, frowned when she saw something hanging there. "Oh yeah..." Joe followed her gaze. "Barry's hung mistletoe everywhere... seems to think he has to give Iris an excuse to kiss him..." That was grumbled with a distinct air of distaste, one that she'd become familiar with over Barry and Iris's excessive PDA and her giggle only served to make him look down at her, made his nostrils flare. "Sure, laugh it up-"

Anything else he might have said was lost when, acting totally on impulse, she raised herself up on her tiptoes, pressing her lips against his. He froze, but only for an instant, and then he kissed her back, his lips moving against hers, his hands coming to rest ever so gently on her hips as hers moved up to rest on his chest. 

She was a little breathless when she pulled away, knew her cheeks were flushed. But she was smiling and, dazed as he looked, his eyes were shining with a light she'd never seen before, one she thought she could get very used to. "Happy Christmas, Joe," she whispered as she moved back towards the living room, an extra sway to her hips as she walked. 

"Happy Christmas," she heard him murmur as she left and she grinned because for the first time, she felt like it might be. 


End file.
